


Love Stuck

by dadpathetic



Series: The ‘Mother Mother’ Trisha Lives AU [2]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Blind Roy Mustang, Domestic, F/M, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Maes Hughes Lives, Nina Tucker Lives, Not Canon Compliant, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Sort Of, Trisha Elric Lives, at least in the present, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:14:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25452988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dadpathetic/pseuds/dadpathetic
Summary: A collection of Roy’s memories of Hughes by year.“I’ve got my love stuck in my thoughts, in my thoughts.” - Love Stuck, Mother Mother
Relationships: Gracia Hughes/Maes Hughes, Maes Hughes/Roy Mustang, Trisha Elric/Riza Hawkeye (mentioned)
Series: The ‘Mother Mother’ Trisha Lives AU [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1822435
Kudos: 21





	Love Stuck

**Author's Note:**

> So this is the second work that’s going up. Obviously because these are not posted in order there may be cause for some context! For this piece all you really need to know is that Nina Tucker lives and is adopted by the Hughes family.
> 
> Title again from Mother Mother song of the same name.
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

_1903_

Roy will recall that this all started with a slice of spinach quiche. His hand stopped short of taking the plate as he saw Maes grab hold of it. He remembers biting back the immediate annoyance he wanted to voice.

“Sorry pal, spinach quiche is my favorite,” Maes chimed. “I just can’t help myself, y’know?” And just like that the annoyance turned to bright anger in Roy’s gut. He wanted to snap, to ask this guy just who he thought he was. Watching Maes saunter over to the assholes he had seen just earlier harassing an Ishvalan man, something had cemented in his mind. The next day, when Roy took a slice of quiche from under Maes’ reaching hand, it marked the start of a feud lasting months, one only ended by a common distaste for ignorance-fueled hatred.

Sitting and telling six year old Elicia and eight year old Nina stories from their academy days well over ten years later, they tactfully leave out the quiet moments months later in any stolen seconds the two could get, spent wrapped up in each other and thinking of nothing but the then and there. Roy remembers so vividly the pieces of falling into his first and most intense love, and he thinks of how much has changed and how much has stayed suspended in time. 

_1905_

“Wow, Mustang, you still look like a kid in this picture!” And Edward says it with such a teasing air to it he can’t help but wonder what picture he’s talking about, and if it’s one of the photos he’s still clinging to the memory of as hard as he can. 

“Hm,” Roy hums. “Which one is it?” 

“It’s the one we took together right after we graduated!” Maes pipes up helpfully. Roy certainly knows that photo. He’s almost sure he could trace every curve of their faces, each line of shoulders and arms, and each fold of fabric. He remembers distinctly days of staring at his copy of the photo, and remembers vaguely nights full of strong liquor and even stronger heartache. The photo had been taken right before Maes had pulled him aside, and had told him in that loving way Maes Hughes said everything, that as much as he loved him, what he wanted more than anything was a family. He and Roy couldn’t give each other that. 

Now the photo is a sweet reminder of youth, innocent faces and eyes marked with hope of protecting the people they loved.

“I love that photo,” Roy says, and he means it.

Ed snorts. 

“How can you love it if you can’t even see it?”  
He hears Maes trying to stifle a laugh beside him, and then he hears Trisha Elric’s gasp of disapproval.

“Edward! Mind your manners, we’re guests!”

Roy feels his chest bubble with laughter despite himself.

_1908_

Roy had known he would most likely see his former lover on the warfront at some point, but it didn’t stop the shock as his eyes caught Maes’ face. His voice as he talked of Gracia, the woman of his dreams, left Roy in more tatters than he was already in. Maes had started to make true on his goal to protect the woman he loves.

He could almost feel the bitterness dripping from his words when he told Maes that if he kept talking about his girl he wouldn’t make it home. He could tell from the look in the other man’s eyes that he was far too aware of Roy’s feelings. 

Now, Maes finds him curled up with his back to the bedroom wall, his thumbs stroking over the metal of his badges of honor from Ishval. Roy feels his hands being pried open and hears the badges clink against each other as they hit the floor.

“Hey, Roy, are you with me?” Maes asks, and he nods as he slumps forward against the man’s chest. It is a wonder that either of them are still alive, it is a wonder that Roy can still grip onto Maes and hear his heart beating soundly in his chest. Nothing could comfort him more than the still-beating pulse of the man he loves.

_1911_

When Elicia asks, Roy tells her that she came into the world as loud and boisterous and lovable as her father. He tells her about the quick labor, about how his train had barely made it into Central City in time to be the third person in the world to ever hold her. He explains that most of what he remembers is her crying so loudly that him and her mother had said she would grow up to be exactly like Maes. Elicia Hughes, like any Hughes, has always been one to make herself known.

The bone deep ache of pining and envy that Roy had once felt towards the life Maes and Gracia had made for themselves has dissolved into a grateful love in the years since Elicia’s birth. 

Maes had once told him that he was basically a second father to his friend’s little pride and joy. After all, he had said, Roy had held her before even aunts and uncles, before grandparents and cousins. Now he really was her third parent, sitting telling her stories before her memories, and gently explaining things to her she doesn’t yet understand. Roy thinks of himself from 1911, and doubts that man could have imagined sharing a life with Maes and Gracia, and helping to raise two young girls. He almost doesn’t believe it now.

_1913_

Roy remembers the look on Maes’ face as he had brought the Elric boys to his friend’s house. That obnoxious know-it-all smile Maes could never get off of his face. He remembers how pissed off it used to make him.

Roy wishes he could still see that smile.

_1914_

Maes had gotten shot in a phone booth mere blocks away from Central Command barely weeks before Roy’s team had been transferred. 

Critical condition, the doctors had said, and there was no guarantee he’d wake up at all. Roy spent every day for two weeks going from work to his hospital room, and back to work again in the morning. Two weeks before Gracia had forced him out, told him they didn’t need both of them in the hospital if Roy forgot one too many meals or forced himself to stay awake a little too long. 

He started sleeping in his office.

Riza dragged him back to his apartment twice, and had stayed the night to keep watch over him as if he was some sort of child. 

He puts every ounce of energy he still has trying to find who did this to the best man he had ever known. He finds secrets in the research Maes was doing the night he was shot. Roy finds far too much information, and yet not enough. He gets wrapped up in a bloody international plot with homunculi, kills the creature that shot his best friend, helps the Elric brothers fix the dead cells in their mother’s lungs, witnesses the closest thing to a god walking the Earth, loses his vision, gets a promotion, and sits in waiting as their government is torn apart and put back together piece by piece. None of it, in the end, is as important as Maes waking up. 

Roy remembers it every time Maes sleeps in on a weekend, the misplaced fear that he will never wake up. 

_1915_

The Hughes family had their hands full taking care of two children and helping a blind man readjust to the world. Roy had become a permanent fixture in their home.

“The kids are getting attached,” Maes had said, as the three adults of the household were sharing over a glass of wine one night. 

Roy’s heart had ached in his chest. He wished he could still read their faces. 

“What are you saying, Maes?”

What he’s trying to tell you,” Gracia chimed in. “Is that it would be a real shame if you left.” He felt his throat clog and his eyes begin to burn. What if he never left? What if the aching in his chest grew until it choked him from the inside out? He couldn’t live as a bystander to the domesticity of the Hughes house forever. Maes had grabbed his hand across the table tight, and Roy couldn’t help but hold on.

“We’ve discussed it between us two,” He started. Roy could feel his heart stop. “And we, well... Roy, I see the way you still act around me, the way you’ve been acting around me for years. You know I’m not stupid.”

He resisted the urge to yank his hand away from Maes’ grip abruptly as he felt the burn behind his eyes grow and grow. He would not cry.

“And it’s, shit, I shouldn’t have expected you to wait this long for my sorry ass.” 

He let out a long sigh, and Roy could envision him running a hand over his face and up through his hair. 

“I’m sorry, I don’t- I don’t understand Maes,” He felt himself choking up as he said. “What are-”

“I never stopped loving you, Roy,” Maes' voice had softened like butter. “I think maybe I should have started with that.”

Roy still thinks about it often. The tenderness. He thinks about it now three years later as he lounges in bed with Maes and Gracia, chatting over glasses of the same wine they had had that night, giggling and speaking as softly as possible to avoid waking the girls. 

_1918_

Roy thinks, belatedly, that perhaps he should have expected that in one way or another he would never be able to detach himself from his love for Maes.

Riza tells him as much over drinks at Havoc’s. He’s thankful Jean and Rebecca only order the top notch shit to get you drunk, because he honestly isn’t sure how much of this conversation he can take. A woman like her spilling secret thoughts over a couple of whiskeys could result in Roy losing the last of the dignity he has left. Maybe he should just be thankful she drinks so rarely. His best course of action is to get her talking about something else, anything else.

“So,” He pauses to sip from his glass. “How are Trisha and the boys?”

Riza’s eyes light up as she loses herself in talking about the woman she loves, and how proud she is of the newly-twenty Edward Elric who has (apparently) made some breakthrough in bioalchemy. Roy will have to ask him about it the next time he’s in Central, if Ed decides he’s worthy of hearing about his research at all.

It’s times like these that he wishes he could send Maes some sort of distress signal with his eyes. 

“Hey Riza!” Speak of the devil and he shall appear, Roy’s thoughts muse. Maes claps a hand down on his shoulder.

“Mind if I borrow him for a minute? Kain wants a word with him.” 

Riza must make some sort of gesture that means ‘that’s fine’, because he’s being dragged away from the bar and into a corner. Maes settles against the wall next to him.

“Fuery needed to talk to me?”

“Nah,” Maes chuckles. “Just wanted you to myself for a minute.” He clasps his hand Roy’s and lets out a sigh before he starts up again. He can never stay quiet for too long.

“It’s weird, isn’t it? Everything is so much faster when you’re actually enjoying it.”

Roy hums. He supposes that’s true. He hears the nose pads of Maes’ glasses hit against the metal of the frames as he pushes them up his nose.

“I’m glad you said yes, you know, when me and Gracia asked if you wanted to be… part of this.”

“So am I.”

He squeezes Roy’s hand. Roy squeezes back.


End file.
